Software that can help your track billable hours
Three Ways to Better Billing
In some law firms, partners are expected to bill 2,500 hours or more per yearâwith many billing far beyond that amount. They need to find continuous access to work to generate hours at these levels.
How to calculate billable hours
How many hours do lawyers work? Most lawyers work more than 40 hours a week. It's not uncommon for lawyers (especially Big Law attorneys) to work up to 80 hours each week. On average, according to the 2018 Legal Trends Report, full-time lawyers work 49.6 hours each week.
If you do the math, 260 days x 8 hours per day = 2080 billable hours in a year.
It's not a complicated equation â the more hours you bill, the more revenue for the firm. Firms âaverage,â âtargetâ or âminimumâ stated billables typically range between 1700 and 2300, although informal networks often quote much higher numbers.
40 hoursFor example, if you want to reach a goal of 2,000 hours annually, you would need to bill for roughly 40 hours each week, or eight billable hours a day. You may not work exactly eight hours each day, but this breaks down what you should average in a day, week, and month to reach your annual goal.
There are 250 work days in 2021. The number of work days in 2021 is calculated by adding up all the weekdays (Mon-Fri) in 2021 and subtracting the 11 public federal holidays that fall on a weekday in 2021. The number of work days in a given year varies depending on what day of the week the year starts on.
Lawyers work hard, and they work a lot. Many firms expect attorneys to reach minimum billable hour requirements ranging between 1,700 and 2,300 hours per year. According to the 2021 Legal Trends Report, lawyers spend just 2.5 hours each workday on billable work.
They can charge a set hourly rate for the time they spend working on your file, a flat fee for a specific service, or a contingency fee, which is based on a percentage of the outcome of the case. Most lawyers or paralegals will ask for some payment in advance, called a retainer.
Utilization is defined as the amount of billable time can you pull out of the total available time of your employees. Industry standards suggest an overall successful agency staff utilization rate should fall between 85 and 90%.
Tips to Maximize Your Law Firm's Billable HoursMinimum time increments.Record tasks as you complete them.Create a firm-wide time tracking policy.Increase your productivity.Complete billing descriptions.Delegate strategically.Track all time⌠billable and non-billable.Get to maximizing.
Typical associate chargeable hours in mega firms and large firms are 2,000-2,100 per year. However, the typical associate who is âin the huntâ for partnership â an ambitious-prime-time-player â are likely to bill 2,300-2,400 hours per year.
Assuming the billable hours are âon the up and upâ, a 2400 hour/year biller is routinely working on client matters well past the dinner hour. In fact more than routine, as an absolute necessity a 2400 hour biller is working on legal issues every night after he has already worked eight full hours.
To achieve 2,200 billable hours, an associate would work from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. each day, added to two Saturdays per month from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., which still would leave the associate a bit short. So add another Saturday for 10 months.
How many hours do 1,892 hours take up a young attorneyâs life? Yale Law developed a chart that gave reasonable amounts of actual time spent for 1,800 billable hours and 2,200 billable hours.
Adam Pascarella, in an article offering advice to junior associates, listed determining your goals as the first order of business when deciding to work for big law. There are a couple of scenarios.
First-year associates will probably count Billable Hours instead of sheep while trying to fall asleep. Itâs just not something that will go away and quite possibly haunts the minds of several newly minted attorneys while trying to get a good nightâs rest. But the hoops of billable hours are manageable.
Associates who bill 2,500 hours or more fall into one or more of the following categories: Those who have the trial / deal from hell that last many months and clock 300 hours plus a month for 5 months can coast the rest of the year and hit 2,500.
Partners are assumed to already have the full basket of lawyerly skills â written and oral communication, client serve, raw legal ability and all the rest. Many partners without billings or âprotectorsâ believe survival requires working enough chargeable hours to satisfy the firm.
It is an inevitable consequence of the dramatic increases in compensation. Most firms have chargeable hour guidelines (quotas). They establish a performance floor for compensation purposes. If your hours fall below the floor, your compensation and future are in trouble.
Yes some lawyers still under-bill, far more over-bill (and no one wants to admit the latter because it is a road with an off ramp sign reading âsurrender license hereâ). Hours-driven bonus systems impact the delegation and distribution of work.
One important aspect of law firm life that is nearly impossible to avoid is the âbillable hour.â Most law firms make their money by billing their clients by the hour. In order to be profitable to your firm, you must make enough money from your billable hours not only to cover your salary and your overhead, but also to generate revenue for the firm. Itâs not a complicated equation â the more hours you bill, the more revenue for the firm.
With a half hour commute (to your desk and working) you are âworkingâ from 7:30 am to 6:50 pm With a one hour commute you are âworkingâ from 7:00 am to 7:20 pm, Monday - Friday
How many hours do 1,892 hours take up a young attorneyâs life? Yale Law developed a chart that gave reasonable amounts of actual time spent for 1,800 billable hours and 2,200 billable hours. The chart accounts for vacations, coffee breaks, conference times and even chit-chat â all those activities that take up an attorneyâs time but are not billable.
To achieve 1,800 billable hours, an associate would work her âregularâ hours plus an extra 20 minutes Monday through Friday, or work one Saturday each month from 10:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. The first option would give an attorney 1,832 billable hours, with a total of 2,430 hours spent âat workâ (AKA: including performing non-billable activities.).
But the average number of billable hours required for first-year associates at firms with more than 700 attorneys is 1,930 hours. The lesson is that if a first-year associate is going to play, (s)heâs going to have to really knock it out of the park as far as meeting the required hours.
Adam Pascarella, in an article offering advice to junior associates, listed determining your goals as the first order of business when deciding to work for big law. There are a couple of scenarios. If she plans to stay and make partner, then she must go above and beyond the required billable hours in addition to out-performing in other law firm areas. Furthermore, the hours only get longer as she moves up the ladder to partnership status.
Most lawyers work more than 40 hours a week. Itâs not uncommon for lawyers (especially Big Law attorneys) to work up to 80 hours each week. On average, according to the 2018 Legal Trends Report, full-time lawyers work 49.6 hours each week. Significantly, 75% of lawyers report often or always working outside of regular business hours, ...
The majority of lawyersâ77%, according to the 2018 Legal Trends Reportâwork beyond regular business hours to catch up on work that didnât get completed during the day. Client service. Clients come first and that can impact lawyer working hours.
Some of the most common health issues fuelled by grueling lawyer hours include: 1 Lawyer burnout. Lawyer burnout is more than just being tired: As the Stress & Resilience Instituteâs Paula Davis-Laack explains on this episode of Clioâs Daily Matters podcast, burnout is âthe manifestation of chronic workplace stress.â By working excessive hours in a high-stress environment, lawyers erode their energy stores and become highly susceptible to burnout. 2 Addiction and substance-use problems. Problematic alcohol-use disorders occur at higher rates with attorneys than with other professions, with a 2016 study by the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation and the American Bar Association Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs finding that 21% of licensed, employed attorneys are problem drinkers. 3 Mental health issues. Lawyer anxiety, depression, and mental health problems are prevalent in the legal industry. The Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation study found that 28% of licensed, employed attorneys suffer from depression, and 19% deal with symptoms of anxiety.
Because of this, lawyers tend to regularly work more than 40 hours a week can equate to stress, a lack of balance, and burnout. Understand the causes of long lawyer working hours and take steps to mitigate them and promote wellness. This way, you can set yourself up for a happier and more balanced life as a lawyer.
Stay physically active. Moving your body with physical activity is an important factor when it comes to lawyer wellness and helping to manage anxiety. Prioritize downtime and time off. Rest is critical to keeping burnout at bay and sleep deprivation negatively impacts our health.
Also, the pressures and exhaustion that accompany long-term overwork can impact lawyersâ career paths and health. Some of the most common health issues fuelled by grueling lawyer hours include: Lawyer burnout.
Mental health issues. Lawyer anxiety, depression, and mental health problems are prevalent in the legal industry. The Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation study found that 28% of licensed, employed attorneys suffer from depression, and 19% deal with symptoms of anxiety.
Donât short yourself that billable time. But be realistic about how many hours you can bill in a day. Not everything lawyers do is billable; an 11-hour day at the office might only yield eight billable hours. And that is OK.
But at most firms, you can and should bill for tasks like reading and sending emails; taking and making phone calls; reviewing accident reports, medical records, and discovery documents; and speaking to clients, opposing counsel, and witnesses.
Youâll get more proficient at both, but it will take a few years, and during that period, expect that your billing entries may be cut. Unless someone told you otherwise, bill all the time you spend on a task, even if you know some of it will be marked down.
In the new matter, the lawyer copies the memo, makes sure the research is up to date, tailors the arguments to the current clientâs case, and files the brief.
At most firms, you will still get credit toward your billable hour goal for all the time you enter into the firmâs billing software, even if not all of that time is billed to the client. Sometimes associates are embarrassed by the amount of time they spend on work they view as âeasy.â.
Most seasoned lawyers recognize that summer associates and young lawyers generally are not good at billing. Most new lawyers donât get comfortable with billing until they are third- or fourth-year associates.
While the lawyer is on the plane, she uses that time to work on projects for Client 2. Some clients donât allow lawyers to bill for travel time, and under that circumstance, the lawyer could only bill the time spent working for Client 2 anyway.
Some lawyers simply use big numbers to express the exhaustion theyâre feeling. Donât automatically trust the numbers you hear.
The associates arenât billing because there isnât enough work for them to bill. Thatâs a marketing problem, not an associate management/billing problem. Of course, some firms have plenty of work and still arenât getting what they perceive as satisfactory billable hours from their associates.
Having associates bill a substantial number of hours wonât help if youâve got other issues. For instance, if your hourly rate is too low or your associate compensation is too high, it wonât matter how many hours theyâre billing. If your business model is flawed, youâre going to have trouble.